Reinventing Sustainable Use: Local Management of Natural Resources in Southwest Niger

Abstract

The cost of doing nothing is, quite clearly, bad business. The Sunken Billions, published in 2008 and written by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank, demonstrated the difference between what is made and what could be made if fisheries were better managed is conservatively estimated to be $50 billion per year. Clearly, fisheries are a dramatically underperforming asset. WWF's Living Planet Report 2012 estimated that continuing "Business as Usual" will require two planets by 2030 to meet our annual demands. A key challenge in moving the world economy to a sustainable path, however, is finding ways to achieve sustainability that are socially, economically, and politically viable -- a problem that is particularly acute in marine fisheries. This 2012 fact sheet from WWF, provides information regarding WWF's Financial Institution or the Recovery of Marine Ecosystems (FIRME) initiative which employs an investment model that finances conservation without adversely impacting livelihoods